Zeng Guofan, the father of the Xiang Army, did not have an army in the world

Zeng Guofan was born in 1811 in Yangshuping,Xiangxiang County, Hunan (now part of Heye Town, Shuangfeng County). The first name is Zi cheng, the word Bo Han, the number Di Sheng. Late Qing Dynasty heavy minister, founder and commander of the Xiang Army. Qing Dynasty military scientist, theoretician, political scientist, calligrapher, writer, founder of the late Qing prose "Xiangxiang School". One of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, the official to the Viceroy of Liangjiang, the Viceroy of Zhili, the Marquis of Yiyong of the First Rank of Wuyingdian University, and the Marquis of Yiwenzheng. Mao Zedong once said to others: "Give to your neighbors, and obey Zeng Wenzheng alone."

In China's modern history, Hunan has never lacked fierce generals who can recruit good warriors, and in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the Xiang Army formed by Zeng Guofan was even more famous for its bravery and good war, so that later generations had the saying that "there is no Xiang army in the world".

Zeng Guofan was born in a landlord family, from an early age diligent and studious, at the age of six into a private school to study, at the age of eight can read the Eight Strands of Literature, read the Five Classics, at the age of 14 can read the "Zhou Li", "History" and so on.

In 1838, the 28-year-old Zeng Guofan was admitted to the Zhongjinshi. From then on, he embarked on the road of career step by step, and became the proud protégé of the military minister Mu Zhang'a. During his stay in the capital, he was promoted seven times in ten years, and he jumped ten ranks in a row, from the Hanlin Yuan Shu Jishi to the positions of Bingbu Shilang and Libu Shilang.

In November 1852, the Taiping Army marched from the north and south of Hunan to conquer Hanyang. Although the Qing government mobilized a large number of Eight Banners and Green Battalion officers and soldiers from all over the country to deal with the Taiping Army, the decadent government army was no longer able to fight. Therefore, the Qing government repeatedly issued orders to reward regimental training, trying to use the landlords' armed forces in various places to curb the development of revolutionary forces.

In 1853, Zeng Guofan established a local regiment training, called the Xiang Army, the Division division, the Water Division, the soldiers were mainly recruited Xiangxiang people, the salary was about 3 times that of the general green camp, and the whole army only listened to Zeng Guofan alone.

In February 1854, the Xiang Army fought its first battle, in Yuezhou, Jinggang, defeated by the Taiping Army, and suffered defeats one after another, Zeng Guofan once had the idea of committing suicide by diving, and when he was in Shangshu, he could only laugh at himself with repeated defeats.

Later, Zeng Guofan, calmly and self-reflectively, regrouped and regained Yuezhou, and the Wuchang Taiping Army withdrew from Hunan.

In the taiping army operations, the Xiang army that had just entered the battlefield was able to quickly operate and lose, so that it was invincible later, and the key was the modernization of the army.

Zeng Guofan believed that there were not many soldiers, but fine, and he bought foreign guns, cannons, and ships, paying attention to improving the combat effectiveness of the troops with elite equipment and scientific tactics.

In the initial substation room, Zeng Guofan made many changes to the conventional firearms in the army at that time, and the problem of cooperation between the gun and the small gun was changed many times, and he configured the firearms to each post, which was set as four teams of cold soldiers per post, two teams of small guns, two teams of carrying guns, and each battalion was equipped with two teams of split mountain artillery.

Zeng Guofan also personally studied and transformed the split mountain cannon cannon, increasing the original 100 sons per cannon to 300 seeds, and using wrought iron planers to increase the range. The Xiang Army organized a firepower network with long-range split mountain cannons, medium-range guns, and small guns in the vicinity, and the cold troops were generally escorted by hot soldiers to minimize hand-to-hand combat.

This kind of tactical thinking was not available before. In the establishment of the Xiang Army, a changfu item was also added, which was also the first time in China's military history that changfu was included in the army establishment, which was actually the origin of modern engineers. The eldest husband went out with the army, only built roads and bridges, built camps and carried them, did not match weapons, did not participate in the war, but paid salaries.

In the summer of 1860, just as the Taiping Army was breaking through the Jiangnan camp and the Eastern Expedition to Suzhou and Changzhou, Zeng Guofan led the Xiang Army's land and water division of 50,000 people to take the opportunity to conquer the Taiping Army from Hubei to the east, trapping Taihu Lake and Qianshan.

After that, Zeng Guofan ordered the Daoist zeng guoquan to lead the road division to besiege Anqing city with 4,000 people of Yang Zaifu's water division, and ordered the deputy capital Duolong'a, and Li Xuyi to lead 20,000 troops to help.

Anqing thought that after the Taiping Army occupied it, it had always been a barrier and a major grain point on the western front of Gongwei Tianjing (present-day Nanjing). The Xiang army besieged Anqing, directly threatening the safety of Tianjing.

The Xiang army adopted the strategy of digging trenches and building fortifications, implemented the strategy of long siege and long siege, and repeatedly defeated the reinforcements of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

On August 25, Chen Yucheng, the king of the Reinforced Taiping Army, personally came to the front, fanned the army into a fan shape, and advanced ten roads to carry out the last rescue of Anqing. The taiping generals each carried a bouquet of thatch on their backs and rushed to the trenches of the Xiang army, slashing and killing while filling in the ditch with thatch.

The Qing army resisted the enemy and concentrated all its artillery fire on the Taiping Army. The Taiping Army was followed by former servants. The bodies in the trenches were pressed layer by layer, mixed with thatch, and filled in the trenches.

Wu Dingcai, the defender of Anqing City, took the opportunity to lead a group of elite soldiers around the trenches and launched a fierce attack.

Zeng Guofan personally ordered the overseers to line up behind the camp and kill all those who retreated to block the Taiping Army's attack. After several days and nights of fierce fighting, corpses were strewn across the wilderness outside Anqing City, and even the river water was stained red.

On the first day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the Xiang army used mines to destroy the northern city of Anqing, and the land and water armies took the opportunity to kill into the city, and Anqing fell.

Subsequently, Zeng Guofan besieged Tianjing with his army, and three years later, the city was destroyed and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom collapsed.

It can be said that in the suppression of the taiping rebellion, the largest peasant uprising in Chinese history, Zeng Guofan "made great contributions" and the Xiang Army and angels became famous all over the world.

In managing the army, Zeng Guofan not only summed up the important military ideology of "first self-government and then subduing the enemy," deep ditches and high fortifications, the art of attacking the city in tunnels, the cooperation of water and land, the use of static braking, and "first pulling out the roots, then pruning the branches and leaves," but also attached the greatest importance to spiritual education, and adhered to "loving the people as the first meaning of governing the army."

Zeng Guofan was promoted by posterity to be Confucius, Zhu Zi, and later, in the revival of Confucianism, the sage of the great sage who built merit, transferred the fortunes of the world, and was the first minister of the Qing Dynasty Xiantong Zhongxing.